


Felicity Pushes Everyone Away

by CJ_fics



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Trauma, Violence, olicity - Freeform, unestablished relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 13:06:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2851751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CJ_fics/pseuds/CJ_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a traumatic experience, Felicity needs some time away from the team, especially Oliver.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Felicity Pushes Everyone Away

She killed Werner Zytle.   
  
As soon as a new drug made its way through Starling City, the team had kept track of it. They discovered, through various undercover operations, the presence of the mastermind eventually became known to them. Werner Zytle had taken over the Count Vertigo moniker.

But Zytle was smarter than the last Count Vertigo. Very little was known of him, not even through Felicity’s access to federal databases. He had established a network of middlemen, henchmen and dealers so he can stay safe from sight, detection and apprehension. He had decoys all over Starling City. No one even knew what he looked like. They could never pin a location on him. He was a ghost.   
  
So while the team worked with the SCPD, and had their own undercover operations, those only resulted in catching his dealers and henchmen. Never the new Count Vertigo himself.   
  
The crime rate in Starling City, which had decreased significantly in the months following Slade Wilson’s defeat, had steadily began to increase again. Team Arrow had been busy with stopping criminal acts induced by the new Vertigo for a few months, while keeping an eye on information about the new Count.   
  
But they’ve also gotten samples of the new Vertigo to send to S.T.A.R. Labs for analysis so they can find a way to counteract its effects. The new version of Vertigo was a lot more dangerous than any of the versions the old Count could ever had made.

According to Barry, Caitlin and Cisco, drugs usually affect the pre-frontal cortex, the area of the brain that as responsible for self-control and will power, but also want. So most drugs result in people having a lack of will but generally a lack of want. But the new Vertigo was more sophisticated than that. More insidious. It worked on paralysing the left and right sides of the pre-frontal cortex, the parts of it that had to do with will and control and the ability to judge right from wrong, but it also stimulated the middle part of the pre-frontal cortex, which was all about what people want. Basically, according to the scientists, the new Vertigo drug resulted in those exposed to it having a lot of wants, but no sense of right and wrong.   
  
S.T.A.R. Labs was able to develop a cure for the new Vertigo. One that re-stimulated the left and right sections of the pre-frontal cortex. The cure was made available to those who had been exposed and those that had developed an addiction to the new Vertigo.  
  
With the cure available, they really thought they could just focus on finding Zytle and stopping him for good.   
  
Zytle found them first.   
  
More specifically, Zytle found her first. He kidnapped her from her townhouse, and left a message to the Arrow about her whereabouts four hours after he captured her.

By the time the team had made it to where Zytle was holding her hostage, he had been steadily administering the drug to her. He told her that he had conducted his own investigation on the Arrow and had discovered that there were SCPD records that showed that she had been brought in for questioning about the Arrow, and that she was the one that the old Count had captured that resulted in the Arrow killing the former drug dealer, he knew for sure that she was either helping the Arrow or that she was important to the vigilante. Or both. He proudly told her that he knew that the Arrow and whomever else was on his team would not hesitate to come for her.   
  
He was right. They all came for her. Oliver. Digg. Roy. Sara. Lyla. Even Ray as The Atom. But it was a trap.   
  
Zytle’s hired goons had successfully managed to disarm and beat the team. There were simply too many of them for the team to successfully deal with.

She was sitting near an unconscious Diggle, untied, and hazy with the drug that she had been exposed to for the past four hours when Zytle finally had the Arrow un-masked. The rest of the team was busy dealing with Zytle’s henchmen. Zytle had taken a bat and had been steadily beating Oliver up with it. She called out desperately for him to stop, to no avail. All she wanted was for him to stop hurting Oliver.   
  
It was then that she noticed that Diggle had an extra gun hidden on his ankle. So she took it, and emptied the cartridge on Werner Zytle.   
  
_Twenty-one bullets on one human body. But Oliver was safe now. He was safe. No one was going to hurt him anymore. That was all she wanted._  
  
——————————————————————-  
  
Now, after receiving the cure from S.T.A.R. Labs, she couldn’t live with herself. She couldn’t live with what she did to Zytle and what that said about her. About what she was. About how she felt.   
  
_Twenty-one bullets on one human body. Twenty-one bullets on Werner Zytle._  
  
Capt. Lance assured her that she was not going to be charged with what she did because she was under the influence of the drug and that she had done so in self-defense. She thought that he personally assured her of that to make her feel better. He was wrong. She had to pay for it somehow. She took a human life. She. Took. A. Human. Life.  
  
She pretended that she was fine. She pretended that she was fine when Diggle hugged her and whispered that he was proud of her and that she was irreplaceable and that she did the right thing.   
  
She pretended that it was all fine when Lyla thanked her for protecting Diggle and the rest of the team. For being the reason why little Angelica would keep having a doting and loving father. For a bit, that comforted her. But then she remembered that she put twenty-one bullet holes in a human body …  
  
She pretended to be flattered when Roy called her ‘kick-ass’. She pretended to smile when Sara hugged her and told her that she was amazing. She pretended to agree when Capt. Lance told her that he was as proud of her as he would be with any of his daughters.  
  
She pretended that she wasn’t thinking about Werner Zytle’s bloody body on the ground when Ray took her in his arms and assured her that she was safe now. She even nodded her head a few times.  
  
She didn’t want to think about it. She just wanted to forget. She knew she would do it over and over again. But she didn’t want to talk about it — and why — ever. She hopes that if she pretends enough, she’ll eventually be fine.   
  
When Oliver showed up in her townhouse, face and body still bruised, and looking at with a mixture of guilt and as if she was his salvation, she shut the door on his face.  
  
She didn’t cry once.  
  
—————————————————————  
  
It was Digg that tried to confront her first. She expected it. He was her big brother. Their relationship has always been refreshingly un-complicated and he could tell her things straight. On the tenth time she said she was fine, he told her, _"Fine. OK. I will let this go for now, Felicity. But let me say two things. One, that what you did, as horrible as it may have been, was the right thing. You protected your teammate. You protected Oliver when I couldn’t. And two, when you’re ready to talk, I’ll be here."_  
  
Then Sara tried. She talked to Felicity about the first time she had to kill someone, and assured Felicity that she would heal from it. Felicity nodded and agreed. Sara knew that she had not gotten through the other woman.  
  
Roy stopped by her townhouse on the pretense that he wanted to borrow Season 7 of the X-Files. He brought her favourite order from Big Belly Burger, and ate with her on her couch as they watched the latest episode of Sleepy Hollow. He was quiet the entire time he was there. So was she. Before he left, he hugs her tightly and says, _"Blondie, come back to us soon, all right?"_. Then he leaves.  
  
Ray stopped over three days after to check on her.

He had been spending less and less time in Starling City ever since their brief relationship fizzled out three months back.

For a while there, especially after he revealed to her his identity as The Atom, and he was somewhat of a guest member on Team Arrow, she thought that she had finally found someone to whom she could share her life, her days with. Someone who would understand what she went through as the Arrow’s tech support. Someone who wanted to be with her, despite the life that he led.   
  
But it hadn’t worked. There were parts of her that she couldn’t share with him. There were feelings that she couldn’t let go of. Feelings that she knew she would never have for him, despite the fact that she really, really, really wanted to have those feelings for him. He knew. So they decided to end things on friendly terms. He would always be important to her.  
  
So when he came over for a visit, she let him in. She allowed him to drag her out of her townhouse and take her out for lunch. She allowed his questions about how she was feeling, assured him that she was fine. And when he finally had had enough, and told her, _"Felicity, you are not fine! I’m worried about you! Tell me what’s wrong. Tell anyone what’s wrong. Don’t distance yourself from the people who care about you, Felicity. Don’t!"_ She allowed that, too. But she never responded.  
  
She didn’t know how. She killed a human being and she felt no regret. She didn’t know how to recover from _that_. She didn’t know if she should recover from that.  
  
————————————————————  
  
Felicity had expected Oliver to show up at some point. But after two weeks, she had sort of given up. Maybe he didn’t want to see her as well. She did shut the door on him when he came over the last time.   
  
Maybe he was feeling guilty about being the reason why she emptied an entire cartridge of a semi-automatic on Werner Zytle. Maybe he knew that she would do it again.  
  
Maybe he thought she was a monster for doing that.   
  
Maybe he was relieved that she hadn’t come back for Arrow work because over the past few months, after things between her and Ray ended, he had been looking at her with such guilt, such sorrow.   
  
Maybe he was tired of knowing that even though he didn’t want to be with her, and someone like Ray Palmer did, she would always want to be with him, Oliver Queen. So maybe he was breathing a sigh of relief that she had been so traumatised over what she had done to Werner Zytle, that she distanced herself from everyone, including him. And he wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth by checking up on her.   
  
Maybe he was just going to let her go.  
  
A part of her wanted him to just let her go.  
  
So when she caught him sitting on the steps leading to her townhouse on the way back from the grocers, she was surprised. It must have been apparent because he started explaining, _"I’m sorry I haven’t been able to stop by. I didn’t know if you wanted me to visit. If you wanted to see me. But I had to come today. We should talk."_  
  
 _"All right"._ She headed into her townhouse, more than ready to deal with him the way she has been dealing with everyone elses concern and questions. She was going to allow him to comfort her. And then she’ll go back to pretending that she doesn’t know exactly what twenty-one bullets in Werner Zytle’s body means.  
  
Once they were situated in her living room, her sitting on her couch, him seated on single chair across from her. Staring at the hands he’s got clasped in between his thighs, he says, _"I’m not worth all of this, Felicity. I’m not worth you killing Zytle. I’m not worth how you’re feeling right now. And I am definitely not worth you, pushing everyone who cares about you away"._   
  
He takes a breath and continues, still not looking at her, _"And I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I wasn’t strong enough that night. That you had to do that. That I put you in the position where you had to kill a man. And I’m sorry that I’m not the man who is worth that kind of sacrifice. That kind of act."_  
  
He pauses and pinches the bridge of his nose, stopping the tears gathering there, _"I’m leaving Starling. I’ve been talking to Palmer and he said he can come back and protect this city. The team will support him as well. So, you can work with him, and with Digg, and with Roy. Sara said that she can come visit and help out sometimes. Barry, too. Will that arrangement work for you?"_  
  
She didn’t know when exactly she moved but she suddenly found herself kneeling in front of him, grasping his hands, _"Oliver! What? Leave Starling? What?!!"_  
  
 _"That’s the solution, right? You’re pushing people away. Diggle. Roy. Sara. Ray. I know you regret what happened with Zytle. I know what it’s like to kill people, the kind of marks it leaves on your soul. And I never wanted that for you, Felicity. And I never wanted to be cause of that. Maybe, if I leave, you can start recovering. You’ll need your friends, the people who care about you, to do that. I learned that from you,"_ he smiles sadly, gripping her fingers.   
  
_"Oliver? What?"_ she breathes helplessly. She’s so confused! He’s leaving Starling City. _For her? What?_  
  
 _"Everyone’s worried about you, Felicity. We all know what’s wrong. We all know you’re having a hard time dealing with killing Zytle," he explains. "Everyone thinks that the best thing for you right now is to go back to work to save the city. Get you some perspective. Remind you of your purpose. Have you believing again that what we, what you, do here is worthwhile, and sometimes, you have to do something unimaginable to save the city. Also, that having daily contact with the team would be good for you. To get you some support. To start healing."_  
  
 _"And I know that, if I remain on the team, you’d never go back. So we agreed that I should go. And Palmer will take my place. It’s the least that I can do, Felicity."_  
  
She’s crying now. At the thought that Oliver thinks that she doesn’t want to go back to the team when he’s there. At his guilt. And what he’s willing to do for her. To help her recover from this.

_He has no idea._

When she sniffles, he looks up and panics at the sight of her tears.  
  
 _"Shit. Sorry, I’ll go now, Felicity. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sorry,"_ he moves to stand up and she stops him by hugging his mid-section.  
  
 _"Felicity?"_  
  
She’s sobbing uncontrollably now, tears running down her cheeks, her chest heaving in the effort to breath through it, her arms tight around his torso, her head buried in the middle of his chest.  
  
He pulls her closer to him, lifts her up so she can settle more comfortably against him, nestled in his lap. He whispers soothingly in her ears, nonsense words and phrases of comfort.  
  
After she’s run out of tears, she tells him, _"Don’t go, Oliver. Please. I don’t want you to go. You don’t have to go. Please."_  
  
 _"Are you sure?"_ he whispers.  
  
 _"I’m sorry, I’ve been so horrible, so distant. I didn’t—"_  
  
 _"Felicity, we understand. I understand! This, what happened with Zytle, I know it’s not easy. But I also know that there’s no recovering from it without the people who care about you. You need Diggle to talk to and to put things in perspective. You will probably need some Angelica time to make you happy. That can’t happen when you’re avoiding. Diggle. You need Roy to hang-out with and watch nerd TV shows and movies with. To try to escape your what you’re going through. You will probably need some Roy-induced exasperation as well — as another kind of distraction. And to remind you that you can feel anger without wanting to kill someone. Sara you will need, I don’t know, to share stories with. Have girl-time with. Maybe spar with to relieve some of the tension you’re feeling. And Ray. Of course, you’ll need Ray. The guy loves you. Wants to be with you. Wants to be your main source of support. And he’ll be good for you, Felicity."_  
  
 _"And you?"_  
  
He hesitates and releases a heavy breath, _"I think what you need from me, Felicity, is to leave. So you can have the opportunity to be with the people you care about. The—"_  
  
 _"I care about you, Oliver. I need you. Do you know what was going through my head that night?"_  
  
 _"No."_  
  
 _"I kept thinking ‘Stop hurting Oliver, just stop hurting Oliver’. Over and over again. So when I saw Digg’s gun, I just grabbed it and shot. Twenty-one times. To make sure that he would never hurt you again."_  
  
 _"I know, Felicity — and I’m sorry."_  
  
 _"I would do it again, Oliver."_  
  
 _"What?"_  
  
 _"I would do it again, even if it came with the same feelings I have right now. Even if it came with the same guilt. I would do it again. If it meant that he would stop hurting you. What does that say about me? A part of me thinks it makes me a monster, Oliver. That I would empty a semi-automatic weapon on a man. That I’m capable of that. But I have no regrets. I would do it again and again. For you."_  
  
 _"Do you remember the first Count Vertigo? Do you remember how I ended his life? Why I ended his life?"_ he says, stroking her hair.  
  
 _"Yes."_  
  
 _"Afterwards, did you ever think of me as a monster for doing that?"_ he asks. When she shakes her head, he continues, _"Now why would you think that I would ever think of you as a monster, Felicity? What else would I think about you other than you’re remarkable and that I’m the luckiest bastard in the universe, having you protect me?"_  
  
 _"It’s not that simple, Oliver."_  
  
 _"Why not? It was simple for me with the old Count. He had you and he was going to hurt you. There was no choice to make."_  
  
 _"It was different, Oliver. It meant something different. You were in full control of yourself."_  
  
 _"Would you have chosen differently?"_ he challenges.  
  
 _"No! I don’t know! Maybe I would have found another way!"_  
  
 _"Maybe. I wouldn’t put anything past your brilliant mind, Felicity. Maybe you would have found a way to deal with Zytle, and stop him without killing him. But you have to forgive yourself for the parameters of that night: You were drugged, you weren’t thinking clearly. He was hurting someone you l— someone you cared about, your friend, your partner, and you wanted him to stop. There was no other choice to make, Felicity!"_  
  
 _"A man is dead because of me. I shot him twenty-one times! I shouldn’t be blameless!"_  
  
 _"Then put the blame on me. I was the reason you had to kill him. I was the one—"_  
  
 _"Do you blame me for being the reason why you killed the old Count?"_  
  
 _"What? No! Never."_  
  
 _"Why?"_  
  
 _"Because I know why I killed him. Because you were more important to me than his life. Than keeping to the vow to not kill. Than honouring Tommy’s memory. Because if it’s a choice between your safety and anything else, I would choose you always. I have learned to accept that, Felicity. I have learned to accept that there is very little in the world that I would not do for you,"_ he says.  
  
 _"Except be with me,"_ she whispers under her breath. She pulls away from him and stands up.  
  
She takes a deep breath, and tells him, _"You don’t have to leave Starling, Oliver. I will be back in the lair soon. I will talk to Diggle and Lyla and Roy and Sara and Ray. I will let them help me recover and move on from this. Thank you."_  
  
 _"Felicity?"_  
  
 _"Yeah?"_  
  
 _"What about me?"_  
  
 _"What about you, Oliver? I know you care about me, and I’m grateful for that. I know that you would be willing to leave Starling City, the greatest love of your life, if it meant I would heal from this. That means so much to me, Oliver. That you would care for me that way. And — thank you,"_ she swallows and then turns away. _"I’m sorry I caused so much grief for everyone. I’ll make it up to them, to you, somehow."_  
  
He grabs her right forearm gently, _"I do want to be with you, Felicity. I do. I’m just not sure that I should want that for you. I’m damaged. I’m —"_  
  
 _"You’re not damaged to me, Oliver! I wish you could see how I see you. What I’m willing to do for you! I killed a man for you, Oliver! I love you! I’m in love with you! The thought of you being hurt, hurts me! And I would do it — kill again and again and again, if it meant you would no longer be hurt. And what does that say about me, hmm? What does that say about me that I am willing to kill for someone who doesn’t even want to be with me?!? Someone who won’t even love me. I’m pathetic! I—"_  
  
He grabs the sides of her head and pulls her close to him for a kiss. Their kisses taste like their tears.   
  
He keeps kissing her until they stop crying, until they have calmed down, until she’s buried in his chest again and his chin is resting on top of her head. He kisses her until she starts believing in herself and in him again. He kisses her until there is no doubt in her mind that he wants to be with her, that he loves her. He kisses her until she’s convinced him that he doesn’t have to leave Starling for her to heal.   
  
_"Stay, please,"_ she whispers.   
  
He stays.

**Author's Note:**

> Another earlier fic. Way before Season 3 started.
> 
> Original post here: http://outoftheclosetshipper.tumblr.com/post/91733087323/prompt-not-established-olicity-with-felicity


End file.
